


Memories for the Dead

by Oroburos69



Category: One Piece
Genre: Gen, Grief/Mourning
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-08-12
Updated: 2013-08-12
Packaged: 2017-12-23 05:44:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 866
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/922680
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Oroburos69/pseuds/Oroburos69
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A dark and mournful island promises the Strawhats a connection to their dead, bringing back old grief that never really died.</p><p>Written for the One Piece Chaos Meme located here: http://serrende.dreamwidth.org/155281.html</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Nami

The match hissed, then sputtered to life. Nami set the matchbook on her desk, and held the fire for a few seconds, watching it and wondering. As it neared her fingers, she set the flame to the wick, lighting the candle.

White wax, black wick, and a warm golden flame reaching up toward the sky. Curls of smoke rose lazily toward the ceiling, and the flame swayed slowly in time to the waves rocking the ship.

She didn't believe, not really. The island they'd visited last had strange superstitions, but superstitions weren't real. They didn't...Nami was a realist. She didn't believe in magic, ghosts, the afterlife, or any of that shit. Devil Fruits did great and terrible things, but people without them had to rely on science and math and physics, not stupid legends and rituals.

A line of wax dripped down the candle, streaking the name she'd written with her own blood, and Nami closed her eyes, her throat gone tight with grief. She'd been mourning for half her life, and it didn't feel like it was going to end anytime soon. This might not be real, but it couldn't hurt.

Nami lifted the stack of beri and set the corners to the fire, igniting it. She dropped the pile in the red bowl she'd stolen from Sanji, watched the money crumble into ash. A part of her flinched at the waste--five hundred beri was enough to feed Luffy for a week--but it was her money. If she wanted to give it away--Nami caught herself sniffling, her nose starting to run, and she bit down on her lip and thought of nothing until she stopped longing for impossible things.

"Bellemere," she whispered to the smoke rising off the money she'd burnt, then hesitated before correcting herself. "Mama. I'm...I miss you. I hope you're okay. Fine. I burnt you some money, they said you'd get it that way and I have lots now, mama..."


	2. Usopp

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Usopp's call to the dead.

He wouldn't have done it if the priest hadn't given him the candles. Six pristine white candles, hand-dipped by beautiful women who worked in complete darkness, made of beeswax from the monstrous honey roamer--well, they were _special_ candles, now weren't they? Usopp wasn't a man who'd spurn a gift like that.

He cut his thumb on Brook's sword, Zoro's being too well guarded and Sanji being too scary to use his knives, and collected it in a tiny sauce dish he'd borrowed from the kitchen. He dipped his brush in the pool of red, ignoring the way it made him feel ever so slightly light-headed, and wrote their names using his best penmanship.

 _Banchina_ on four of the six, because the grief that lived in him had her name on it, painted in broad strokes so long ago that Usopp couldn't remember being without it, and _Going Merry_ on a fifth, for a friend he would not forget.

The last he painted just in case, with blood that was beginning to dry by the time he decided that it wouldn't be bad luck if the man really was alive. _Yasopp._ It'd been more than ten years, after all, and Usopp wouldn't want him to be sad if he _was,_ and Usopp _didn't_.

Usopp let them dry in his workshop while he carefully cleaned and dried Sanji's sauce dish, returning it to the kitchen, and then wrapped them in a scrap of fine silk, gifted to him by a grateful princess. He'd burn them later, when he'd found something to use in offering. A scrap of Adam's wood for Merry, maybe, and Usopp's old slingshot for Yasopp.

Banchina was harder, but Usopp hit on it at dinner, in the middle of telling one of his stories. He fell silent, barely noticing how no one else seemed to care, too distracted by their own thoughts. He left his meal half-finished, and escaped back to his workshop.

Three hours later, he lifted his pen from the page, and blew on the ink to set it. _The Tale of Usopp the Mighty Pirate Captain, Hero of the Grand Line and Various Other Geographical Regions_ was complete. His handwriting was painfully neat, his fist aching from the effort, but Usopp wanted to make sure she could understand every word.

He paused looking over his offerings--a sliver of wood, a battered old slingshot, and his story, ten pages long, and wondered if it was enough. Grief welled in his heart, old, aching loss mingling with more recent ones, and Usopp blinked back tears. Black Mountain Island was a sad one, a place for the dead more than for the living. It was no wonder that he couldn't stop tearing up out of empathy.

He gathered it all--the offerings and the candles wrapped in Vivi's old scarf, and set them in on of the pans he used for making things with gunpowder, and set out onto the deck.

He'd light them and tell Mama about his day. Maybe his year. Okay, he'd tell her about all the years since she'd died, and Yasopp and Going Merry could listen in if they wanted to. Usopp was a good storyteller. They'd like it.

**Author's Note:**

> One Piece Chaos Meme is still open and running--go check it out here: http://serrende.dreamwidth.org/155281.html
> 
> Lots of fic, lots of fun.


End file.
